@alistairpottsrsr: "I've been worrying lately about course design (insert joke). FISA is 
getting ever more and more millimeter-perfect in deciding who has won a 
race. But how sure are we about the fairness of our courses?
In short, it's not really worth obsessing about how _long_ the course 
is, nor even whether the start and finish lines are exactly 
perpendicular to the course. But: the start and finish lines _must_ be 
parallel, to a very very precise amount. And that's not easy: surveying 
(the old-fashioned way) the Finish from an arbitrary Start line to 2 
parts per million is not easy. The most up-to-date bit I know of is the 
Nikon laser surveying gizmo, which has a range of 2700m, claiming 
accuracy of 3ppm (or 6mm/2000m) - but what about older courses? Are they 
ever re-surveyed?
You may think you could use a bearing. However, imagine a perfectly 
east-west course at 55North (somewhere in England) with the Start and 
Finish lines both running due North. Take a guess how much shorter lane 
1 will be than lane 6 .....
... 3cm. Just because of the shape of the planet.
(This is why no-one ever wins in lane six)
My point is: as finish cameras get ever faster and more accurate, FISA 
should define what is and what is not a dead heat, and whatever they 
choose should be able to justify it. Personally I don't think we should 
be too obsessive about it - but the corollary is we shouldn't imagine 
that being able to separate boats by mere millimetres is progress."
    @anonymous: "On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 16:59:57 +0100, Alistair Potts
<quote>
As well as potential inaccuarcies in the length of each lane, don't
forget that even with the "clog" starting system, there is inevitbaly
some inaccuarcy in the alignment at the start.  Where boats finish
closer together than this, it seems only fair to me to cal it a dead
heat, even if a super-fast finish camera appears to allow us to
separate them.
Richard"
    @anonymous: "On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:50:23 GMT, "Christopher Anton"
<quote>
There was one race (I can't recall which since I was 2000 m away at
the time!) on Saturday at Nat Champs where the two boats involved
couldn't be separated on the photo finish, and I believe a scheme was
worked out that allowed both boats to continue to the next round.
Hint - there are those who think that the colour of a bow-ball doesn't
matter.  True, from a safety point of view it's entirely irrelevant,
but if you're ever racing at an event with photo finish equipment, and
get involved in a tight verdict, then the boat with the cleaner
bow-ball *does* have at least half a pixel's advantage... ;-)
Richard"
    @firstname: "<quote>
True, I think. Half a pixel is not unthinkable either, check this from the
Tour: <url>
Firefox Browser - Rediscover the web - <url>
Thunderbird E-mail and Newsgroups - <url>"
    @usenetadriaan: "<quote>
If you define 'fairness' as 'equal conditions for every crew' I don't 
think any course or race can ever be fair.
If you define the winner of a race as the crew that has its boat 
crossing the finishline first, I think that a dead heat should be called 
whenever two crews can't be seperated on the finish photo, however small 
or great the accuracy of that photo.
How about the second one on this page? 
<url>
Adriaan"
    @alistairpottsrsr: "<quote>
These pictures are pretty counter-intuitive, to the extent of making 
one's head hurt if you look at the pictures for long enough, but since 
you have no idea how fast the boats are going when they cross the line, 
the camera can't tell you the winning margin. It looks like you can see 
the winning margin, but you can't. Really. At all.
And it throws up one alarming problem. Even if what you say is true, 
then the criteria for a LW1x 'dead heat' and a HM8+ 'dead heat' are 
completely different. The former has a tolerance of about 3cm, the 
latter double. That's silly.
However, I'm not sure you're right about the 1/100th thing. The relevant 
wording seems to be: "Intermediate times and finish times shall be 
recorded to 1/100th of a second... ... [The judge will examine the photo 
and if he/she] is not able to determine the order of finish between two 
or more crews then the result will be declared as a deadheat between the 
crews involved."
Take a look at the 4+, from this year's Lucerne:
<url>
It was declared a dead heat, although the timing official felt confident 
to use the software to separate the boats by 0.008 seconds.
My educated guess is that the Swatch software then spat out times of 
6:17.87(0) and 6.17.87(8) - or some other combination where the two 
times fell in the 6:17.87 boundary. Hence the times to 1/100th were the 
same and a dead heat declared. Had the winning boat's time been 
6:17.875, and the second's 6.17.883 then would the result still have 
been a dead heat? I'm not so sure.
Another example - the LW1x (at the bottom):
<url>
This is a perfect example of not making the mistake of inferring the 
winning margin by looking at the picture - look at their oars! Now how 
confident do we have to be with Dorney to take this result at face value 
- that lane 6 and lane 2 are being snapped after completing exactly 
2000m? Even if the clogs were properly aligned in the first place (a big 
if - see my first post), they sit in the water corroding 24x7. As does 
the machinery holding them to the bank. And the bank itself moves - 
which will move the finish marker too. And don't even start on bendy 
bowballs...
A"
    @Carl: "Adriaan <email_address> writes
<quote>
A competent surveyor can indeed lay out a 2k course to millimetric 
accuracy.  Such standards are not dependent on "latest technology" - 
mechanical methods always used to work pretty well (tapes, chains, 
etc.).
However, I entirely endorse Adriaan's point - that courses, especially 
multi-lane, are seriously unfair more often than not.  At the British 
Nat Champs heats on Saturday, rowed in a cross-head wind, the apparent 
lane advantage for lane 6 over lane 1 was at times around 30 metres. 
Results that day were a lane-draw lottery, making photo-finishes a 
nonsense.
I discussed this in passing with a former international rower, who 
shrugged his shoulders and responded "That's rowing for you".  I replied 
that in IMHO it had nothing to do with rowing itself but arose from the 
naivet� of those who impose a string of demands on boats & athletes, 
supposedly to ensure competition "fairness", but can't admit that 6-lane 
courses hardly ever provide fair competition.
That being the case, it would be no less fair to cut the cost, throw out 
the photo-finish kit & bring back the old custom that anything closer 
than 2ft is a dead heat.
Cheers -
Carl
Carl Douglas Racing Shells        -
     Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: The Boathouse, Timsway, Chertsey Lane, Staines TW18 3JY, UK
Email: <email_address>  Tel: +1-612-460-5822  Fax: -466550
URLs:  <url> (boats) & <url> (riggers)"
    @alistairpottsrsr: "<quote>
Quite. Rowing is never 'fair', and we all have to accept the vagaries of 
wind, currents etc. But I can't accept that the randomness of 
photo-finishes is part of jreed@example.net.
Who dreamt up clogs anyway? Yet another aspect of boatmanship is 
neutered. Also, stake-boat-duty is a fantastic way of inspiring people 
to row.
A"
    @rowinggolferNOSPAM: "(snip)
<quote>
Sadly, I'd guess that in today's climate you'd still need the photo finish 
to assert that crews were more than 2ft apart though."
    @lrand: "<quote>
In ordinary layout the start finish lines would be set 90 degrees off the 
course. A true North bearing would not be easily available while lines set 
at 90 degrees off the course would calculate to North but with each North 
line parallel to the other North line at opposite ends of the course. So 
that is grid North or project North and not true North.
Also note that in simple layout diagonal distances can be checked...
Of course in modern layout control points are set near required points and 
then the control points located by a loop survey where each control point is 
occupied in the traverse loop. Then required points are set at short 
distances from the control points.
Do this in water ? Well of course build piers which is not unheard of in 
surveying since geodetic surveys build towers...
(I believe that surveys across the English Channel used oil tankers. In this 
case the control points in the water are just temporary to get permanent 
control points on each shore.)"
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